It is well known and widely reported that the average age of Americans has been gradually increasing as families are having fewer children and people are living longer. Recently, there has also been an increasing amount of press coverage about the rising average weight and sedentary lifestyle of Americans. The combination of these factors has made older people less agile and more injury-prone, which has lead to an increased need for wheelchairs and walkers.
Trailer homes, also called mobile homes, are prefabricated structures that are built in a factory and delivered to the location where they will be used. These types of homes are quite common with there being an estimated 38,000 mobile home communities in the United States. Trailer homes aren't built on the spot where they will eventually rest, and, as a result, plumbing, piping, heating and electrical are placed beneath it, which causes the home to be placed in an elevated position. In addition, the topography of the lot upon which the trailer home will ultimately be placed is unknown at the time of manufacture and it is almost always the case that a staircase and a platform or deck needs to be built in order to facilitate access to the home.
When trailer homes are manufactured, however, the manufacturer places a weather stripping section below the exterior door that extends a few inches below the door sill. Additionally, it is often the case that the door frame extends away from the exterior of the trailer home because they have thin walls to maximize interior space and don't really have room for a six to eight inch door frame. Therefore, in order to open the door, any deck or porch that is built outside the unit must accommodate the weather stripping and any external portion of the door framing and the result is that the platform or deck is several inches below the door sill or interior flooring. For young and agile folks, this height difference is of little importance because they can easily see the height difference and simply step up into the trailer upon entry. People who are wheelchair bound, need to use a walker, have reduced mobility or reduced visual acuity, on the other hand, may have difficulty safely navigating this elevation difference.
Trailer homes are not standard; some are constructed with doors that open inward while others open in an outward direction. Moreover, many of the trailer homes constructed without doors that open inwards also have storm doors on the outside opening outward. All of these factors combine to collectively rule out a fixed ramp solution to the problem.
It is known in the art to provide ramps to enable disabled individuals to get in and out of motor vehicles. Typically, these types of ramps are designed to allow individuals in wheelchairs pass from a lower plane to a higher plane and are equipped with powered mechanism that allows the ramp to move from a lowered position flush without the surrounding platform to the proper elevated position. While these types of ramps are powered and generally provide vehicular access, they have several distinct disadvantages including weight, position of storage, use during power failure, and modifications necessary for installation and use. Moreover, these systems suffer from the requirement of a twelve volt power supply, which may or may not be readily available in a mobile home setting.
It is also known in the art to use dock levelers or dock boards in connection with loading and unloading facilities for trucks. Such devices typically include a ramp which is movable from a horizontal position to an inclined position as well as an extension lip pivotally mounted to the forward of said ramp to engage the bed of the truck. Dock leveling devices, while providing means for moving objects above or below a plane, have a number of disadvantages in the context of the present application. Many dock levelers are for indoor installation and cannot be activated from both inside and outside the building. Furthermore, dock leveling devices disclosed in prior art cannot be used independently by an individual with impaired mobility due to the fact that final adjustments must be made by walking on top of the device to ensure it is at an appropriate level.
Although various types of levelers and ramps presently exist for a variety of uses, none address the specific challenges of the trailer-home application. Therefore, there is a significant need for an adjustable ramp that facilitates access to a trailer type home for people who are physically and/or visually impaired. The present invention satisfies this need by providing a ramp that can be raised to the level of the doorsill or interior floor of the trailer home and also extend forward to bridge the gap between outside edge of trailer home and inside floor, does not block any doors when not in use, can be operated by a disabled person without need for manual adjustment and can do so from inside or outside the home.